A Child's Introduction to the Environment

A Child's Introduction to the Environment provides an entertaining and instructive tour of the Earth's varied environments, along with activities and materials to encourage young environmentalists.

Kids aged 9-12 and their parents will appreciate this upbeat yet clear-eyed, interactive look at our magnificent planet and how we can safeguard it. Exploring in turn the water, land, and air around us, the book looks at the wide variety of environmental regions of the world (deserts, forests, cities, farms, ice caps, oceans) as well as the atmosphere, weather, energy sources, plants, and animals of each area.

Short features throughout offer fun facts, projects, and experiments that kids can do with parents or on their own, including how to brew sun tea, create lightning, make a smog detector—and more. A special packet inside the front cover contains a reusable lunch sack, peel-off stickers with messages such as "TURN OFF THE LIGHTS," "RECYCLE," and "UNPLUG," and a special poster from the NRDC. Charming original watercolor illustrations throughout are perfectly paired with an accessible text by a father-and-son team of writers. And it is all printed on recycled material, of course!

Dennis Driscoll is an Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at Texas A&M University specializing in biometeorology, the interaction of the Earth's atmosphere with living things. He lives in College Station, Texas.

Michael Driscoll is the author of A Child's Introduction to Poetry and A Child’s Introduction to the Night Sky (both Parent's Choice Award winners). He is currently a staff editor at the New York Daily News.

Meredith Hamilton graduated from Brown University and has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Formerly an art director at Newsweek and Time, she illustrated all the books in the Child's Introduction series, among other books, and her work can be found in magazines and animations as well. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and three children.